The present invention relates to light emitting devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to light emitting devices and lighting devices.
Some light emitting diode (LED) based lighting device manufacturers such as Osram®, LumiLeds®, and others sell high-power LED modules, each module including one or more LED packages mounted on PCB (Printed Circuit Board) or MCPCB (Metal Core Printed Circuit Board). For example, these include FR-4 and FR-5 boards. FR-4 and FR-5 are popular insulating boards upon which many printed circuit boards are produced. Typically, FR-4 and FR-5 boards include a thin layer of copper foil which is laminated to one, or both sides with glass epoxy panel. Other configurations are also used for FR-4 and FR-5 PCBs.
The existing LED modules typically include PCB or MCPCB in a mostly two dimensional structural design. Further, there are little or no structures for alignment of various portions of the LED modules to other portions or with external structures such as, for example, electrical cable or wires for connection to other circuits. In the existing technology, hot-bar soldering technique is used to solder cable and wires of the sample prior art LED module to PCB. Thus, the assembly process may lead to repeated heating cycles of soldering heat on the board that can damage the LED semiconductor itself or destroy the delicate balance and interaction of the various elements inside the LED module and LED package due to their differential physical and thermal properties.
Heat is one of the worst enemies of LED modules because, in part, heat can permanently damage and substantially degrade luminous output and long term lumen maintenance performance. Further, heat can even destroy the LED module entirely when it is heated over 200 degrees, Celsius, for a prolong period of time, for example, for more than a few minutes. Therefore, it is difficult to solder several loose wires on a MCPCB or PCB without adversely affecting the LED module.
Accordingly, there remains a need for an improved LED module that eliminates or alleviates these problems.